


Inescutcheon

by Etanseline



Category: Lord of the White Hell - Ginn Hale
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etanseline/pseuds/Etanseline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kiram can't decide which scares him more: the possibility of facing shape-shifters and witches, or his own poor sense of direction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inescutcheon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dai/gifts).



> Continuation set immediately post-series, assuming that Javier and Kiram travel into Mirogoth instead of leaving for Yuan.

“North,” Kiram said, dubious.

“Better than south,” Javier replied, his tone casual in spite of what they’d fled. It had seemed a good idea that morning, curled up together in a warm bed with nowhere in particular to be, no obligations to tie them down, and every possibility open to discussion. It wasn’t that Kiram had anything against Mirogoth in particular – and the Blue Forest was so close, half a day’s travel from the port they’d spent the night in by map, it seemed a shame not to at least take a look.

Kiram spread the map between them. On paper, the Blue Forest looked intriguing: delicate icons of trees took up a large part of the southern Mirogoth border, and from their port someone had scratched in a path that led straight to the heart of it. The isthmus from Cadeleon to Mirogoth left them few choices: south was out of the question, and north meant they would have to cut through the forest at some point, whether to go into Mirogoth or to round the coast to Labara. The Red Witch hadn’t been docked in the first Mirogoth port, and travel options to Yuan were limited from the smaller ports they’d encountered.

Now the forest rose impenetrable and dark on the horizon, stretched to the limit of every visible direction without a single obvious trail in, let alone a well-beaten path. The sight of it turned Kiram’s thoughts from adventure to uncle Rafie and Alizadeh’s stories of Mirogoth.

“I could argue that it’s my obligation as a bahiim,” Javier said, aiming for serious but failing to hide the cheek in his voice. “To hunt down all of the old supernatural evils.”

“I’m not saying no,” Kiram said.

Javier gave him an arch look. “You’re not saying yes.”

“I am saying yes.” Yes with reservations, and there was no point in keeping them to himself. “But the Blue Forest is infamous for, well, witches. Shape-shifters. Murderers, thieves, wild beasts—”

Javier leaned close, carefully avoiding the map, mouth brushing Kiram’s ear. “So says the man who stared down a shadow curse and the white hell. Besides, I know what you’re truly afraid of,” he said. Kiram leaned into him, breath held, and Javier kissed the soft hollow behind his ear. “You’re afraid that if we go any farther north, you’ll have to wear three winter coats instead of two, and the locals will laugh you out of Mirogoth.”

Kiram boxed his ears. Javier wrestled him to the grass; he won eventually, but only after Kiram had given him enough trouble and grass-stains to count as a worthwhile fight.

By high noon they were bound for the forest.

*

Within an hour they were lost, and every attempt to turn around made it worse.

The sun had dropped low enough that it no longer crowned the trees or offered much useful light. What it did offer, in a backhanded sort of way, was an eerie glow through the dense canopy overhead, casting shadows in every direction. The longer they walked, the less Kiram liked the idea of remaining in the forest overnight.

“We’ll probably have to sleep under the stars tonight,” Javier said. A glance upward revealed only leaves and branches. Kiram’s feet snagged in the root of a craggy old tree the moment he stopped watching the ground, and he fell hard into a patch of ferns, which he figured was as good a place as any for a break.

As Javier noticed and doubled back, Kiram watched him openly. The only physical evidence of Javier’s conversion was his growing hair; in all the commotion he’d had no time to get it cut, and now it hardly mattered. Kiram followed this train of thought to the traditional dress of the bahiim, the white prayer clothes and orange traveling cloak, to what Javier might look like as a full initiate. He rather liked the image. Furthermore, a traveling cloak would have been useful.

Javier’s grin started slow, but soon turned wicked. “Enjoying the view, I see.”

“I was just thinking about you in a bahiim cloak,” Kiram explained, glad that the low light hid the colour rising on his face. “We could have made a tent out of it.”

“We’ll manage without,” Javier said. “In fact, it might be fun.” The warmth in his voice was ridiculous – who knew what creatures the night would bring; it was hardly time for innuendo – but Kiram was simultaneously glad for it, if only because it took his mind off of the descending sun. “We only need a decent tree, and before you say anything— it’s more comfortable than you’d think.”

“If I fall out and break my neck, I’m going to haunt you.”

“You won’t,” Javier promised.

*

“I don’t see anything but evergreen,” Javier called. His voice bounced off the tree-trunks, not far away, but he’d wandered out of sight while Kiram focused on his search.

As he started in the direction of Javier’s voice, Kiram tried to decide whether the Blue Forest had so far been a disappointment or a relief. There were no witches, or much of anything besides thick groves of trees, shrubs, and thorns, and the occasional startled animal. The trees rose straight and tall, thin branches starting high above Kiram’s head and unsuitable for sleeping in besides.

Once Kiram thought he was being pursued, though the heavy crashing turned out to be a red squirrel. It chattered angrily until he knelt to grab a stick to throw at it.

He would have noticed too late if not for the squirrel. It stepped slowly from the brown vines and fallen leaves of the forest floor: an auburn wolf, body held low to the ground as it advanced, one paw at a time, and almost soundless. Kneeling, Kiram and the wolf were eye to eye.

Kiram’s thoughts turned, panic-quick, to the bow over his shoulder. Not that it would be any good at close range. He could yell, and hope Javier hadn’t wandered far off, or he could—well, pull out his knife and wrestle with the damn thing, if it came to that, though master Ignacio had likely never imagined a student using a year’s worth of his instruction to fight off a wild animal in the forests of Mirogoth.

Then again, this was hardly the strangest thing Kiram had experienced since leaving Anacleto.

The wolf’s upper lip curled back from its teeth – big, awful teeth, rooted in black gums, yellowed and stained in what Kiram’s imagination helpfully identified as the blood of its victims. A low sound rattled in its chest. One hand reached for his hip while he simultaneously drew in a breath to yell for Javier.

“Greetings, Haldiim,” the wolf said, in guttural but functional Haldiim. “Welcome to the Blue Forest.”

“Thank you,” Kiram said, without thinking, because the moment he started to think was the moment he started yelling bloody murder.

The wolf leapt back, ears laid flat and shoulders hunched. Kiram heard his name through the trees, followed by the sharp crack of crushed branches. For someone so in tune with nature, Javier crashed into view with the sort of blunt carelessness Kiram would expect more of Elezar, hands already on his sword.

The wolf perked its ears and made a chuffing sound, almost like a snort of laughter. It darted into the thick of the underbrush before Javier could make good on the threat of his sword. Kiram tracked glimpses of its auburn hide as far as his eye could follow, but the wolf quickly blended into the dark undergrowth and was gone.

“Javier,” Kiram said, as the moment of shock passed and understanding dawned. Javier gave no sign of having heard him: he stalked a rough circle around Kiram, jacket snagging on branches in his haste, until he was certain the wolf wasn’t lurking in the brush. “I think it just—”

Javier pulled him close with one arm, the other still grasped on the hilt of his sword. “You’re not hurt?”

The only coherent thought in Kiram’s head sounded worse out loud, even muffled by Javier’s jacket. “It talked to me. I think it was a shape-shifter.” He grinned, remembering the festival at Zancoda and its shabby Mirogoth sideshow. “Nestor would love this.”

This startled a laugh from Javier, at least, easing some of the tension from his shoulders. “You’re thinking about Nestor at a time like this?” While his gaze continued to rove over the underbrush, Kiram could see the familiar arrogant smile working across his face. “Should I be worried?”

“He’s a married man, so no,” Kiram said gravely. His thoughts turned to Musni, but with none of the old irritation or hurt, and quickly returned to the woods: but nothing moved, and the trees stood, impenetrable and dark, wherever he turned.

“So it’s getting dark and we’re dealing with a witch,” Javier continued, in the same easy tone, as casually as he would have announced the menu at the Sagrada cafeteria or the weather. “Fantastic.”

*

Kiram kept a watchful eye for the wolf all afternoon, and was rewarded several times by glimpses of red fur, the gleam of a golden eye through the trees. It darted away the moment he turned toward it.

Sagrada had introduced Kiram to more than his share of malevolent magic. This one was watchful, but Kiram doubted it was an active threat: there was always the possibility that it was waiting for night to press its advantage, but its interest seemed benign, and by mid-afternoon it left them alone.

In that form, at least; shortly after, Kiram noticed the cardinal.

If not for past experiences with birds, Kiram would have thought nothing of it. It was the same cardinal, though, hopping from branch to branch, red crest and wings a beacon in the near-dark, while her brown body blended into the trees. Female cardinals were a reddish-brown colour, Kiram remembered, while males were entirely red.

When Kiram stopped, the little bird took wing and landed on his shoulder.

“Excellent,” Javier teased. “I was worried about dinner.”

“I’ve killed and eaten more than enough magical birds for one lifetime, thanks.” The cardinal ruffled her feathers and whistled, an irritated sound insofar as a whistle could sound irritated. She was answered by others in the trees, several dozen of them to judge by the sudden din of bird-calls. “You look like a helpful fellow,” Kiram told her. “Do you know where we could find the nearest road?”

Javier watched him with open affection. “You and your birds. Perhaps someday they’ll have something to say to me.”

“You did call her dinner,” Kiram pointed out. “At least I know how to make a decent first impression.”

Kiram knew what she wanted from the moment she took flight. It was a risk, of course. Alizadeh and the Irabiim had whispered stories of Mirogoth and the Blue Forest during their visit to Zancoda, and these stories, more often than not, ended poorly.

Javier took in his expression and sighed. “Sometimes I wish you were even slightly afraid of the supernatural.” Kiram could think of more than one instance when holding his ground had led to far more interesting conclusions. The look he gave Javier said as much, and Javier had the decency to look embarrassed.

They followed the cardinal into the brush.

*

“We could have left this until morning,” Javier said. Tripping over unseen roots had put him in a petulant mood. “I’d wager my fortune that she’s leading us to our deaths.”

Part of Kiram was tempted to agree – especially now that their guide had all but disappeared in the gray haze before true dark – but he planned to remain optimistic until proven otherwise. “I think she’s less of a threat than our own poor sense of direction, and you don’t have a fortune to wager.”

Javier laughed. “Fair enough.”

Kiram caught sight of the cardinal again at last, or the outline of it: there were dozens of them in the trees, their flapping wings giving the impression that the tree itself was shivering. They took flight before he could point them out to Javier, a living mass of feathers. Kiram’s hand moved instinctively to his bow.

The shift was almost too fast to follow with the naked eye, though on either side of the moment of transformation Kiram caught a brief glimpse of cardinals with furry wings and a wolf with feathered hide. The rest of the change was instantaneous.

“Huh.” Javier stopped, hand idle on the hilt of his sword.

There was Kiram’s well-beaten path, at last, and in the middle sat the wolf, perched on the hillock of ground between two wagon ruts. She cut a dim figure in the gray twilight, but her eyes were sharp, fur ruffled from the transformation.

“You will find an inn along the path, if you go north,” the wolf said. “If you continue beyond it, you might catch up with the Irabiim. South will return you to the forest’s lower edge.” Her tail wagged, agitated, kicking up dust. “Go quickly. The Blue Forest at night is no place for foolish children.”

“You really are a witch,” Kiram said, still in awe.

Javier bumped his shoulder. “Tactful as always, underclassman Kiram.”

“Sorry.” Kiram bowed; he wasn’t certain that a wolf could look pleased, exactly, but the agitated wag of her tail stopped. “Thank you very much. We owe you a debt.”

The wolf tilted her head. The gesture was simultaneously dog-like, calling to mind the Grunito family’s hunting hounds, and deeply human. “Go in peace, young Haldiim. And your companion is…?”

“The former Duke of Rauma,” Javier said, then paused. “Otherwise known as the dangerous runaway heathen of Rauma, and recent convert to the bahiim religion. The pleasure is mine,” he finished, with a showy flourish.

“We’ve heard of you.” The wolf watched them a moment longer. “The Irabiim are expecting you.”

With that she vanished.

For a while they stood, staring into the dark where she’d been, and Kiram, at least, felt very small, under the weight of the forest and what might be lurking in the dark. “I don’t think you impressed her much,” he told Javier, reaching out and threading their fingers together.

Javier squeezed his hand. “No matter. I suspect she’s the sort that’s difficult to impress.”

*

“I feel like I’ve asked this question before,” Javier said. He paced the length of their small room to stand at the window, though the torches that bracketed the inn’s entrance offered little more than a pool of light at the base of the building. Beyond that, everything was sound: animal calls and the whisper of wind through the trees. “North or south?”

Kiram dropped to the bed with a groan. “Can it wait?”

Javier watched for his reaction. “Do you want to catch up to the Irabiim?”

“Yes,” Kiram said, though after a moment his answer started to itch. “No. I don’t know.” He buried his face into the pillow, which smelled strongly of mothballs, and slowly breathed out. The problem, really, was the wealth of options: they could go deeper into Mirogoth and the frozen lands, braving the forest and growing cold; east, to Labara, and beyond; to the nearest port that would start the long passage to Yuan, where they would find Majdi and his crew, and possibly Alizadeh and uncle Rafie. There were other lands on the map he knew only by name, north and south, east and west, and every direction in between: the isthmus was only a temporary restriction.

This was freedom, then: no longer feeling trapped by the future and its possibilities, but nonetheless overwhelmed.

“There’s no rush.” Javier stopped to dig through his pack and joined Kiram on the bed, with one of Alizadeh’s books opened to a makeshift bookmark. “We can decide in the morning.”

Kiram sighed. Eventually the shuffle of pages stopped, the silence driving a much-needed wedge into Kiram’s disordered thoughts, and a moment later Javier started to read aloud from the text.

While Javier’s voice was comforting, a low, even cadence of archaic Haldiim words, most of the point skipped over Kiram’s mind without leaving an impression. His thoughts returned to the problem of direction, then to the wolf-woman and others of her kind lurking in the forest. They roamed to thoughts of Yuan and what it might be like, and made a detour to Anacleto.

Not that Anacleto was on the table, at least until the Royal Bishop gave up the search for the abdicated Duke of Rauma, but Alizadeh and uncle Rafie had mentioned staying a while in the Haldiim district. Alizadeh had barely scratched the surface of Javier’s bahiim training, and there were others who had yet to start; he’d yet to be introduced to the other bahiim, if the political situation had settled enough to make those introductions possible.

Kiram was attempting to compose a letter suitable to be read at home when Javier moved, so sudden that Kiram jumped.

Javier pressed him to the bed, one thigh over Kiram's, ankle hooked under Kiram's calf. His eyes, so close, were intense: dark pupils blown, sliding over Kiram's face without settling on one feature. "Finally he came to my room," Javier said, with such quiet fervour that Kiram knew this wasn’t part of the bahiim text. "I'd thought it a hopeless cause for so long that it seemed unreal to see him there in the door, not with his shoulder turned and his eyes to the stars but facing in, and so uncertain. He'd come to discuss the shajdi, of that I was certain, but still the anticipation was too much."

"You're-- Reading," Kiram guessed, with a glance to Javier’s pack. Not that it was there; he’d forgotten Calixto’s diary in the dorm in their haste to flee Sagrada.

"It seems I finally have your attention," Javier said, with a self-satisfied grin. “Reciting, actually. Bishop Seferino is more quotable by far, though Calixto certainly had a flare for description. I’ve read the journal so many times that I bet I could tell you the entire thing from memory.”

“But only the dirty parts,” Kiram guessed, thinking back on their conversations about the book, the likely direction of Javier’s story so far, the heat of Javier’s body where they were pressed tight.

Javier shrugged, leaning in until they were nose to nose. “We could start at the beginning, if you’d prefer. Star charts and technical terms weren’t what I was after, admittedly, but on the other hand my memory is excellent, and if all else fails we can fall back on the good parts.” He added enough emphasis to suggest that this meant the dirty parts after all.

“I would like that,” Kiram said.

Javier kissed him lightly on the mouth. “On one condition: stop thinking about tomorrow, and think about me. I’m far more interesting.”

“I always think about you,” Kiram said, feeling better already. “You’re extraordinarily irritating.”

Javier grinned. “That’s the spirit.” He rolled to the side, but stayed close. Kiram watched him, eyes on the ceiling while he tried to remember the start of the journal, thumb playing idly over the knuckles of Kiram’s hand. “Well, to start, I’m sure you can appreciate the fact that my ancestor was terrible at seduction. He starts his journal with a story…”

The direction didn’t matter, Kiram decided, and then let the thought alone for the night.


End file.
